Newsgroups: sci.lang
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!news.sprintlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!librik
From: librik@netcom.com (David Librik)
Subject: Re: Mayan Language Texts
Message-ID: <librikDFFyvF.6zL@netcom.com>
Organization: Icy Waters Underground, Inc.
References: <rfredin-2009951313440001@ocn27.miracosta.cc.ca.us>
Date: Mon, 25 Sep 1995 03:26:03 GMT
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Sender: librik@netcom23.netcom.com

rfredin@owl.csusm.edu (Robert Fredin) writes:

>I am interested in locating instructional texts in contemporary Mayan. 
>Any suggestions would be welcomed.

The only real book available on this subject is _Maya for Travelers and
Students_, by Gary Bevington, University of Texas Press, 1995.  It assumes
you know colloquial Mexican Spanish (something of a necessity down there
anyway), and is intended for the individual learner to get a grasp of
the grammar and lexicon in an informal way.  There's also an interesting
discussion of the problems of learning an indigenous language.  The
language taught is Yucatec Maya; there are many languages in the Maya
family with a good deal of serious variation!

Robert Blair and Refugio Vermont Salas did a textbook and audio course
called _Spoken (Yucatec) Maya_, but it was never published.  It is
available on microfilm, or a hardcopy printed therefrom, from the Publications
Department of the University of Chicago Library.  The cassettes are available
from the University of Chicago Language Lab.  In this same series of
microfilmed documents from U of C is the best grammar of Yucatec Maya,
Manuel Andrade's _A Grammar of Yucatec Maya_.

Avoid Alfred Tozzer's _Maya Grammar_.

More sources and details can be found in the bibliography of Bevington,
which should be your first stop.

- David Librik
librik@cs.Berkeley.edu
